Can You Be the Last Thing I See
by Wolfstorm7
Summary: Now, the nine lives have become a curse. zombie!Warriors.


Because the only thing more enjoyable than writing an Apocalypse fic is writing an Apocalypse fic in which everyone is a CAT.

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He restlessly paced the den, his fur on end. Outside, his Clanmates began to yowl, and his blood ran cold with rage at his own helplessness. Snarls filled the camp, alongside the familiar thumping and shuffling of warriors in battle. His heartbeat raced, his ears twitched. More than once, he heard his Clanmates cry for help, and almost dashed down the stones into the fray, but Jayfeather's warning echoed in his mind and he forced his paws to a halt each time.

_You'll become a monster._

He returned to circling his den with such ferocity that his bedding lay strewed and shredded upon the ground.

_A monster, _the medicine cat had told him.

He closed his eyes and saw four dozen pairs of eyes staring at him from the darkness, eyes so pale they were almost white. His Clan. Every single cat taken by the Sickness.

It was the nightmare that had haunted him ever since they'd caught word of the outbreak from the emancipated RiverClan tom who'd dragged himself into their camp a half moon ago.

_They're all dead_, the tom had whispered. He'd fled from his territory to the ThunderClan quarry with his mate, Duskfur, and their kits. _WindClan is infected as well. You have no time. Run._

But ThunderClan hadn't run. They could have run into the mountains, away from the disease that took cats and made them kill the ones they loved. But they hadn't. Bramblestar blamed himself, and now, with every pained scream of his Clanmates, he was paying for his indecision.

Hazeltail screeched, "They've reached the elder's den!"

He couldn't help them.

_-you'll kill them all._

_You'll become one of Them_, Jayfeather had told him, _but nine times harder to destroy._

Jayfeather knew because it'd happened with Mistystar: the RiverClan tom had told them about how she'd been bitten by an infected Clanmate and murdered more than half her Clan before the survivors managed to escape to the TwoLeg-Place, Mistystar and the other Sick following. There, a TwoLeg male brought out a long, thin package, set it on his shoulder, and a small, shiny pebble went buzzing through Mistystar's head.

Destroying the brain was the only way to kill one of the Sick.

But Mistystar had stood up again.

_Each of your nine lives will become infected separately,_ deduced Jayfeather, horror creeping into his wide sightless eyes. _If you get bitten, you'll kill them all._

Bramblestar paced his den, his mind a battlezone. If he went out, he'd become infected. There would be no stopping him once he was Sick.

_You can't risk it, _Jayfeather had said.

But if he did nothing? Sit here? **Wait?**

_When they come, you must stay in your den._

But they would die without him. Bramblestar could not let his Clan die.

RiverClan, for example: RiverClan was no more. All that was left of the camp were pools of murky red water. Broken reeds stuck in the mud like shards of bone. Among the reeds and blood lay the corpses of the cats left behind, rotting, their skulls split and shining white. He couldn't let his Clan fall to the same fate. They'd beat off the Sick, cure them, send them to StarClan. Wake the forest up from this wild curse that had sunk into its very deepest roots.

The air smelled like iron now, and the sound of wailing kits reached the leader's den from the nursery down below. Icecloud's first litter. Bramblestar's heart froze as one of the kit's voices raised in intensity. Terror stained the little sound like blood running into water. It kept raising in pitch, becoming a high desperate shriek that suddenly _broke_-

Icecloud screamed "NO!"-

Bramblestar hardly realized his paws were moving as they took him from his den. The sky was darkening, but the area below his den was surging with fighting bodies like waves on the lake. He surged down the warm stones and into the throng of bloodied cats. They flashed past him like ghosts. There were Mousewhisker and Bumblestripe, clawing at the fallen Blossomfall's head. Whitewing battering paws against Leafpool. Toadstep lying motionless on the ground.

Bramblestar had to leap over Toadstep. Was he dead? A second later, Thornclaw, his eyes like blue stones, appeared from the masses and bit into Toadstep's skull with such force it sounded like a nut cracking.

Mousewhisker and Bumblestripe raised their heads at the sound, their eyes also flashing an icy white. Bramblestar tried to dodge past them, towards the nursery, but Mousewhisker slashed at his back. The Clan Leader snarled and threw the white and brown tom to the ground, twisting to avoid the snapping jaws, and scoured his claws across Bumblestripe's eyes. The Sick tom staggered back, and Bramblestar saw that Blossomfall was still breathing. He searched her body with his eyes. Did she have a bite? If she did, there was no reason to try to save-

He rushed away, leaving Blossomfall for the Sick to devour. Better eaten alive then to become one of Them.

He had to reach the nursery.

Icecloud's screams echoed across camp.

Daisy came at him slack-jawed and frothing. From a rock, Brightheart pounced on her friend hard enough to break the queen's back, but the farmcat stood again and shook Brightheart off. Bramblestar fought with Brightheart to drive the she-cat against the rockface of the quarry wall.

Bramblestar managed to shove himself against Daisy and pin her against the rock face to the point where her jaws could not open. "Do it," Bramblestar odered Brightheart. She hesitated, soft, low sobs of despair rolling from her throat. "DO IT," he meowed, feeling the presence of other cats behind them.

She did.

He released the now-still corpse and turned; Hazeltail and Jayfeather were approaching.

"Bramblestar?" Hazeltail looked relived. Not so Jayfeather.

"ARE YOU INSANE?" gasped the medicine cat, his blood-stained flanks heaving. "You'll ruin us."

Bramblestar opened his jaws to tell them that he wouldn't get bitten, that StarClan had chosen him to lead and wouldn't let him get bitten-

He found it hard to grasp what happened next. The dead behind Hazeltail and Jayfeather rose up and came at them. The Sick attacked from all sides. Their teeth flashed, sunk in deep, and blood burst in ropes from Jayfeather's flanks-

_Run_, the RiverClan cat had said, before he had died in Jayfeather's den. The cats who had been watching had fallen silent and bowed their heads. Then the RiverClan tom had opened his eyes again, revealing a white like the clouds, and bit his own mate in the face.

Bramblestar ran.

The nursery.

He kicked and clawed his way through the fray, not knowing whether he was climbing over corpses of his healthy Clanmates or the Sick, not caring, just spotting empty blue eyes and digging his long claws into the soft ridges where the skull was weakest, tearing their heads open and hoping it was enough to lay them down in the grave forever.

Then he saw the brambles of the nursery walls. Tiny balls of moss lay at the entrance, leftover playthings from a time before the disease.

Before him, Foxleap stood in the nursery entrance. His head was bowed.

"Foxleap," Bramblestar meowed, coming to a halt, hesitantly. The tom didn't respond.

Bramblestar was aware of a presence at his side, a pure white pelt streaked with brown. Icecloud pressed herself against him, quaking. "He killed them," she whispered, her eyes fixed on her brother. "Tinykit and Greenkit. He loved me. Why would he kill my kits?!"

Bramblestar's heart pounded, but he strained to keep his voice steady. "He doesn't love you anymore. He can't feel anymore. He's Sick in his brain, Icecloud, and to cure him you have to set him free from the pain."

The young queen shook her head and her entire body shook with it. Foxleap's dark pelt rippled as he raised his head slowly. At his feet lay little bodies. Blood glistened in the light of the dusk.

Icecloud squeezed her eyes closed. "I can't."

With those words, everything seemed to explode into motion. Foxleap sprung at them, and from the rock wall a sleek ginger pelt rocketed into his side, smashing him out of his intended line of flight. Simultaneously, Mousewhisker, Rosepetal, and Lilypaw attacked from behind. Bramblestar fought with every move he'd ever been taught. It was hopeless. Then he abandoned the moves and fought like a wild creature, no laws, no Code, just a tiger with the amber eyes of his father. Next to him, Icecloud was drowning under a sea of the Sick. How were there so many Sick? His mind was going bleary. Bramblestar realized then that other Sick from WindClan had joined the fray, drawn from their territory by the yowls and scent of blood.

Where was StarClan?

"Help us!" he screeched, to the starless sky, as one of the Sick dug her claws into his neck. "I BEG YOU!"

The darkness tumbled in from all sides, and his pelt was burning with blood. All around him, ice white eyes were glowing.

_If you get bitten-_

Suddenly, he couldn't go on. He dropped to his stomach. The sounds of battle faded, leaving behind an eerie, ringing absence of sound that made his head spin... and somehow, he found himself staring straight into Squirrelflight's eyes. Green eyes. The Sick were still battling above them, clawing at new cats. ShadowClan had arrived. The battle surged away from them as the healthy ShadowClan warriors drove back the Sick, and the pair lay for a moment, forgotten by the world.

"Were you bitten?" rasped Bramblestar, not dropping his gaze from his deputy's. Her eyes were still green, like they'd always been, those eyes he had adored. She breathed in through her nose and shook her head. Blood continued to pour from his wounds, but he couldn't bear to look down at himself. "Was I?"

There was silence, then-

"You proud, proud fool," she meowed softly. Like a branch bending in the wind, she toppled onto her front slowly, her eyes still locked with his. Now they lay side by side, their pelts faintly touching. He recognized the wounds for what they were now. A gaping bite pulsed on his flank, another under his ear, another near the end of his spine.

_You'll become a monster._

His head swam sickeningly, and his gaze flickered up to the quarry walls, catching a glimpse of a few cats standing high on the edge. Hazeltail, Birchfall, Brightheart, Cinderheart and one of her kits, Seedpaw, Lionblaze... Lionblaze had not a scratch on him.

Run, for the love of StarClan, for the memory of everything you held dear.

_Run._

He could see the dark pelts of ShadowClan cats, some still locked in battle with the Sick, some fleeing up the quarry stones.

_Run._

Squirrelflight lying beside him.

_You'll kill them all._

He felt the flames of Sickness searing him from the inside, and he knew he had only seconds.

"I love you," he whispered, staring into her green eyes. A hot sensation was creeping up from his flank to his spine, from his spine to the base of his neck, from his neck to his brain…

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Review, my lovelies, pretty please.


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